marycatelli: (Default)
I ripped off an idea from another story.

I was just looking back at that story and realizing how little of it came away, in part because it grew into the rest of the story ideas.   I look at it, and I know for a fact that the villains grew out the idea, but they were entirely different from the villains of the story he came from. 

Inspiration is strange.
marycatelli: (East of the Sun)
Hurrah. The stepmother and stepdaughter ran off together and found themselves in a hut in the forest, desperately needing two people to die.

Horrible people, to be sure, but they have no real way to kill the husband and father, and they don't even know who the other person is.

I think the mirror is going to be helpful. A bit.
marycatelli: (Rapunzel)
Early in the story, the heroine thinks she should practice a spell for later use, in case she needs to prevent prying.

Later, I am desperately wondering how to set up a conversation she wants no one to listen to except the select group -- until I remember that earlier bit.

Also, it could be used for several points in between.

Sometimes inspiration is a matter of connecting the dots
marycatelli: (Galahad)
At least the five villains entered.

Not the ones who refuse to villainize.  This is the other isekai tale, where  I thought there were five points where the villain acted.  

There are four subvillains, and the important thing was nailing down what they looked like.  

Not that the connecting parts are so clear.
marycatelli: (Default)
There needed to be three.  Three situations where the heroine realized she needed to frame the question correctly  to solve the problem, because she could only solve it from an unexpected angle.
Read more... )

questions

Mar. 18th, 2025 11:54 pm
marycatelli: (Default)
Yes, there are always questions about "what goes here?" while writing, but this time, after I put a question in a crucial moment, the muse starts to babble about questions.

At the turning points, the heroine's victories will turn on her having correctly framed the questions. Victory turns on that.

Not, of course, that I have three questions (and answers) for the three crucial points. I may have to generate one. sigh
marycatelli: (Rapunzel)
Juggling two outlines -- trying to keep them traveling in separate lines -- and the one that seemed to have more of a story has proven -- sketchy.   The heroine has to solve problems, but that means I have to define the problems. 

Meanwhile the other one is revealing that there are animal themes among the magic involved.  Go figure.
marycatelli: (Default)
Oh you plot bunnies!

Two very different stories about a character who finds herself in another world.  The means by which they are moved differ, the situations they find themselves in differ, their powersets differ, and the reasons they have powers differ.  Their enemies differ, and so does the conflict.

This probably means they should have different reactions to arrival, perhaps all the more in that they do not glide over it as a machine that the readers will simply accept as not relevant to the plot.  (It is relevant in both cases, though -- the reasons differ.)

Both are going to have  metaphysical questions, though.  No matter how different I make them.

(And I don't even know if either one is a full story yet.)
marycatelli: (Default)
Had a story idea, months ago. It dumped a character into the middle of a big problem, and I had no idea how the problem existed or what she could do to solve it.

Had another idea, wherein she figured out that there are two sets of spell-slingers, one of which is evil, one of which is as much a victim of the first as anyone else -- perhaps more. And resolved the matter.

All right! Plunge into the outline! Discover that the middle is still entirely vague!

Oh, well, I have a few inklings.
marycatelli: (Default)
I write in the outline that the hero fights an evil knight here, rescuing a prisoner. 

I note that ravens are involved. 

But I need to elaborate it into an actual scene. 

Ah, the discovery you make about the adequacy of outlines.

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